In May 1956, the Texan label Starday issued a wild rockabilly single by Thumper Jones. Its top side, the kinetic “Rock It”, was primal, uncontrolled and wild. The flip, “How Come It”, was less frenzied but still driving and infectious. Original pressings of the two-sided pounder in either its 45 or 78 form now fetch at least Ј200. This is not your usual rockabilly rarity though. The record’s label credited the songs to a Geo. Jones. Thumper Jones was a pseudonymous George Jones (1931–2013), who was cashing in a hip style: the only time he did so with rockabilly.

Some of the individuals who played key roles in the success of Bletchley Park in reading the secret communications of Britain’s enemies during the Second World War have become well-known figures. However, the man who created and led the organisation based there, from its inception in 1919 until 1942, has, surprisingly, been overlooked – until now. In 1914 Alastair Denniston, who had been teaching French and German at Osborne Royal Navy College, was one of the first recruits into the Admiralty’s fledgling codebreaking section which became known as Room 40. There a team drawn from a wide range of professions successfully decrypted intercepted German communications throughout the First World War.

Late sixteenth-century Florence was alive with theater. Seeking to achieve the perfect blend between music and poetry, intermedi (interludes) were inserted into plays. These interludes were presented with lavish visual and musical resources. After reaching an initial peak in 1589 with the intermedi composed for Bargagli's La pellegrina, the tradition survived the burgeoning genre of opera through the work of such composers as Peri, Caccini, Monteverdi and Gagliano. On this release, rather than aiming for the impossible ideal of a reconstruction, Raphaël Pichon has devised a sort of imaginary intermedi by selecting the finest gems from this repertory, featuring the figures of Apollo, Orpheus and Eurydice, and above all Cupid.